These Young Hikers Miraculously Survived After Spending 48 Hours Lost In a Blizzard

On December 11, Maddie Popolizio, 19, and her boyfriend, Blake Alois, 20, set out for what they thought would be a short three-hour hike in the Adirondacks, near their hometown of Niskayuna, New York. But their adventure quickly turned into a nightmare after the couple ended up trapped for more than 48 hours in a blizzard near the top of Algonquin Peak, the second-highest mountain in New York state.

According to the Daily Gazette, Popolizio said the weather was supposed to be "partly cloudy" that day. However, in the middle of their hike, a thick fog rolled in over the summit.

Within minutes, the pair was trapped in a whiteout.

"We were terrified — we didn't know which direction to go and we couldn't find the trail," Popolizio told PEOPLE. "Visibility was close to nothing."

They linked arms and tried to find their way to what they thought was a clearing. Instead, they walked off the edge of the mountain and fell 100 feet down, landing on top of some trees blanketed in deep snow.

Realizing there was nowhere to go, the couple huddled together, surrounded by snow drifts and tree branches. Without cell phone service, they knew they would just have to wait to be rescued.

Popolizio credits her survival to Alois, who helped keep her feet and legs warm with his backpack. Alois says he couldn't have made it without his girlfriend, either.

"Just having someone I loved next to me was huge," he told PEOPLE. The two kept each other's spirits up by exchanging reassuring words and talking about what their lives would be like after the ordeal was over.

Rescue crews finally located the pair after two days of searching. Popolizio and Alois started to scream when they heard a helicopter, drawing the rescue crews to their location.

The young couple was airlifted to the Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake, New York. While they both suffered from frostbite and hypothermia (Alois's feet are still bandaged as he recovers), they will thankfully be okay.

"We made an agreement early on when we got trapped that neither one of us could die," Popolizio told CBS. "Because we couldn't leave the other one alone. And after that death wasn't an option for us. It just wasn't."